The Mine Safety and Health Administration, more commonly known as MSHA, just held their annual Training Resources Applied to Mining conference, more commonly known as TRAM. (I am not sure I knew what TRAM stood for before today–how about you?)
We exhibited at TRAM and our intrepid Sales Account Manager Valerie Cantrell gave a presentation on how to use blended learning, including online learning activities, for mining safety training and MSHA compliance.
We attend the SE Mine Safety & Health Conference every year, and we’ll be there again this year. We’re looking forward to seeing you, too!
The conference is next week. It begins on Wednesday, November 2nd and continues on both Thursday the 3rd and Friday the 4th.
Come on by and say hi to us, we’d love to chat with you and see what’s on your mind. We’ll be in Booth 23.
We’ll be demonstrating our video-based mining safety training courses and our OSHA/general industry-based safety training courses (which can also be used for MSHA compliance).
Here’s a quick sample of one of our online mining safety courses.
Click the following links if you want to learn more about our mining safety courses or our general industry safety courses.
IN ADDITION, we’ll be demonstrating our Convergence Learning Management System (LMS), an online software application you can use to manage all of your mining safety training.
Here’s a quick overview of our Convergence LMS and how it an be used for all aspects of mining safety training and MSHA compliance.
Click the following link to learn more about our training management system for mining safety.
Finally, feel free to download the free guide below to learn more about how to use online safety training tools like these for MSHA compliance. And we look forward to seeing you at the conference in Birmingham!
Download our free guide to learn how online tools can help you create safer work conditions at a mine site, stay compliant with MSHA Part 46 regulations, and manage your training program more efficiently.
Almost every safety manager, or EHS manager, that I’ve spoken to is a busy person who’s juggling many balls and wearing many hats.
If you’re a safety or EHS manager, and you’re not swamped, great for you! Consider keeping your job. 🙂
But if you ARE swamped, it’s reasonable to think about how you can use your time more efficiently. I sound like Captain Obvious, no? And one of the ways you can do that is to make more efficient use of the time that you use to lead instructor-led training in a classroom-like setting or field-based training to workers on the job.
In this article, we’ll look at how you can use online safety training tools to help you use that face-to-face training time more efficiently and effectively.
(Hi there! We’ve recently updated this article to include additional data and insights. Please click to read our new article about OSHA’s Top Ten Violations List for 2016.)
Every year, OSHA releases its list of the ten most cited violations from the previous fiscal year.
They do it in two stages, actually. In October, they release a preliminary list, and then they release a second, expanded version of that list with more data later in the year.
As our friend Mr. Calendar makes clear, it’s October, which means it’s time for that initial list. And just like clockwork, OSHA’s done it. They’ve released their “preliminary list of the 10 most frequently cited safety and health violations” for fiscal year 2016. We got the news from the OSHA blog.
And also just like clockwork, we’re getting that information to you as quickly as we can.
We’ve got the list for you below. We’ve also included links to additional webpages related to each of the commonly violated standards–the additional pages include free training materials, fun word games, interactive glossaries, additional helpful information about the regulation and how to avoid violating it, free safety checklists, and more. We’ve also included some samples of relevant health and safety eLearning courses for each standard.
The state of Washington recently held their 65th Annual Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Conference.
The conference was great. Congrats and thanks to the organizers and staff for putting together a great event, and of course kudos, props, and high-fives to all the attendees, exhibitors, and presenters (and to anyone else involved that if I’ve mistakenly left anyone out). And a hat-tip to Spokane–a  lovely city with a beautiful waterfront–thanks for dialing up the fantastic weather!
I was there and I gave a short presentation on effective environment, health, and safety (EHS)Â training. Thanks to the folks who attended my presentation.
I said I’d write a quick blog post where people can download some free, related materials–primarily a free 60-page Guide to Effective EHS Training, based on the newly revised ANSI Z490.1 (2016), the national standard for Accepted Criteria in Safety, Health, and Environmental Training. And that’s what this blog post is all about.
So thanks again to everyone, hope to see you again at a future conference, let me know if you’ve got any questions, and click the MORE button below to get your freebies and additional resources.
It’s not easy to develop effective occupational environmental, health, and safety training. If you’ve been doing it yourself, you know this.
And what makes it worse, many times the people tasked with designing, developing, delivering, and evaluating that training are experts in certain areas under the “EHS umbrella” but don’t have a lot of expertise in things related to training or learning and development. Sound familiar?
In this article, we’ll give you an overview of how to improve the environmental, health, and safety training at your workplace, we’ll link you to more extensive articles on each topic, and most importantly, we’ll give you a free 60-page guide on creating better environmental, health, and safety training so you can apply it at work over and over again.Â
Please note that this article and the free guide at the bottom are based on ANSI Z490.1, the US National Standard of Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health, and Environmental Training. You might also be interested to know that ANSI Z490.2, an upcoming standard on online safety training, is currently in the works (check that link for an update on progress).
We’re in the middle of a big generational change in the United States.
The Baby Boomers are retiring and leaving the workforce. And a new generation, the Millennials, are entering the workforce.
(Quick facts: Millennials were born between “the late 70s” and “early 2000s” and there are somewhere around 75 million of them in the US–more than the number of Baby Boomers. Read more about Millennials here).
It seems you can’t go anywhere without hearing or reading about Millennials, how they’re different than other generations, how they’ll change things, and how to best interact with and communicate with them. Honestly, I think some of this is exaggerated and are straight-up wrong. I’ve got two daughters who are Millennials, their friends are Millennials, and I seem to be able to communicate with them. They’re MILLENNIALS, not MARTIANS, right? And I’ve seen lots of others pushing back on this idea that millennials are some inexplicable, alien life form as well.
But on the other hand, it’s true they’ve lived different lives, have had different experiences, and have different expectations and desires than some of the rest of us do. At work, that will manifest itself in many ways, and one of those is the kind of safety training they’re going to expect, appreciate, and benefit from.
So without wading too deep into the murky philosophical waters of asking “What defines the Millennial generation?,” let’s take a look at a few simple things you can do to make your safety training better for this new generation.
Safety training can come in many forms, media, or “delivery methods.” For example, there’s field-based training, classroom-style instructor-led training, written materials, video-based training, interactive eLearning courses, and more.
Learning experts recommend you use a mix or blend of many to get the best safety training at work. For example, that’s the recommendations from:
Within that blend learning solution for safety training, we recommend you make use of animations and even 3D animations in some instances. In this article, we demonstrate 10 amazing things you can do with animations to create more effective safety training. Check ’em out!
It’s October already. And that means that here in the US, cold weather is on its way once again.  Brrr.
And that also means it’s a good idea and a good time to consider how well prepared you and your workforce are for the lower temperatures.
Dealing with the cold weather may seem like something we all know about. But the truth is that people suffer from hypothermia, frostbite, trench foot, and other cold-related problems every year. And it’s almost always avoidable.
So, we’ve pulled together some helpful resources for you about cold stress, frostbite, working in the cold, and generally keeping safe in the cold. They’re drawn from various sources, including OSHA, the Department of Labor, AAA, National Public Radio, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and more. Hopefully you’ll find one or more of these helpful.
Stay safe and stay warm, friend!
And hey, here’s a nice tune to listen to when the temps really begin to drop: Baby, it’s cold outside. I like that version, don’t you?
Computer software systems are all around us, and we use them a lot.
We use them a lot in our personal lives. For example, Facebook lets us catch up with friends and family. Google lets us find information we need. We watch movies online and we listen to music online. We even go online to do our banking, pay our bills, or shop.
The same is true at work. You’re reading this on a web browser now, obviously. And I wrote it using a blogging platform called WordPress. And if you’re anything like me, today you’ll be using a lot more software, too: Microsoft Office, Excel, and Word, plus maybe PowerPoint depending on how the day goes. I’ll probably be using some image editing software and custom software for logging my time at work, too. Maybe you’ll be doing stuff like that as well.
But it’s not just you and me. It’s all of the people that I work with, and probably all the people you work with, too. And because software is so common at work, it’s important to be able to teach new workers how to use software. Plus you’ve got to train existing employees how to use new software when it’s introduced at work.
And all that software training can burn up a lot of time–yours and theirs–if you do it inefficiently.
But fortunately, there’s a group of products that have the ability to record your computer screen and make little “how-to” videos for software training.  These tools can be very helpful, they can save you a lot of time and money on software training, and they can be used to teach employees software applications more quickly and effectively. So what’s not to like about that?
In this article, we’ll tell you more about these screen recording software applications. Please note that Convergence Training makes none of these products, has no business relationship with any of their makers, and doesn’t endorse any one product. We’re just saying that as a group, they’re a handy product type that can make your life easier at work.
This is the third and last article in a three-article series looking at OSHA compliance requirements for general industry employers.
In the first article, we looked at six compliance requirements that apply for most general industry employers.
In the second article, we looked at an additional nine compliance requirements that may also apply to those employers.
And in this third article, we’re going to kind of “mop up” and provide a series of five additional compliance considerations that all general industry employers should keep in mind.
The information in these articles is coming from OSHA’s handy online Compliance Assistance “Quick Start” Guide for General Industry. If you’re not familiar with it, we definitely encourage you to check it out.
And finally, you may want to download our free Guide to OSHA General Industry Compliance.
And with that, let’s continue and wrap up our series.
In this article, we’re going to look at some best practices for management leadership in your workplace occupational health and safety management system, or OHSMS.
This is one of a series of articles discussing health and safety management systems. If you’ve missed the other articles in this series, we’ve got a list of them plus links at the bottom.
The entire series of articles is based on information from ANSI Z10, Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. As we’ve said in the earlier articles, we highly recommend that you buy a copy of the Z10 standard for yourself. There’s a ton of useful information in it, including a large collection of helpful appendices at the end. It never hurts to take some guidance and get some helpful resources from the experts at ANSI and ASSE. The cost is $105.
With the scene now set, let’s get on to the focus of this article: management leadership in your health and safety management system.